African Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 7(45), pp. 5995 -6004, 27 November, 2012 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJAR DOI: 10.5897/AJAR12.1840 ISSN 1991-637X ©2012 Academic Journals Full Length Research Paper Rice marketing in Bangladesh: From the perspective of village study at Cox’s Bazar district Abeda Sultana Faculty of Business Studies, Premier University, Dampara Campus, WASA Circle, Chittagong, Bangladesh. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: +88-01815-074884. Accepted 25 October 2012 The paper analyzes the problems and prospects of rice marketing in Bangladesh by way of using secondary data as well as primary data. Both secondary and primary data are indicative of the fact that rice marketing in Bangladesh is marred by a wide range of problems including packaging, transporting, storage, distribution and pricing. There is a comparative advantage in the production of high yielding rice in Bangladesh but its marketing system is not suitable to the small farmers to bring fair price. Most of the respondents’ opined the major causes of price hike are natural disaster, inadequate supply of food grain in the market, less production, hoarding by traders and creating artificial food crisis in the market, problems of communication system, increase of middlemen in the market to reach food grain to consumers. This study is explanatory in nature which suggests measures that can benefit both the farmers and the end users. Key words: Agriculture, marketing, Bangladesh. INTRODUCTION Bangladesh is one of the less developed countries in the marketing if they think about what to produce and how to world, with a per capita income of about $700 in 2010. prepare it for sale, when and where to sell, what can be Although the relative contribution of agriculture to GDP done for market expansion, realizing the relative has fallen over time (currently 21%) the absolute advantages and disadvantages of different methods of contribution is still on the rise. In terms of employment, marketing their products, for example, contract agriculture still remains to the largest source. The marketing, direct marketing etc. The knowledge of economy of Bangladesh is primarily dependent on agricultural marketing helps the growers to adapt to the agriculture in terms of employment. About 85% of the changing new rules and regulations and to the various populations are directly or indirectly attached with market development programs like Department of agriculture. A lot of programs for agricultural development Agricultural Marketing (DAM); National Agricultural Policy have been arranged in our country on the production of (NAP) etc. Rice is the staple food in our country. It staple foods, especially rice and wheat. It is evident that provides 68% of the calorie and 54% of the protein in- without an efficient agricultural marketing system no take of an individual on an average (Karim et al., 1997). program for raising production can sustain. So institution Food security at both national and individual levels is of marketing reforms is necessary. Without efficient related to population, agricultural growth and also market marketing no production can create much value. situation. Agricultural marketing involves moving an agricultural The population of Bangladesh is growing by two million product from the farm to the consumer. Large number every year and may increase by another 30 million over inter-connected activities are: planning, production, the next 20 years. Thus, Bangladesh will require about growing and harvesting, grading, packaging, transport, 27.26 million tons of rice for the year 2020 (Islam and storage distribution and sale. Marketing has to be Syful, 2009). This present study aims to examine the customer-oriented and has to provide the farmer, practices and problems of rice marketing in Bangladesh transporter, trader, processor etc, with a profit. Farmers with the help of available secondary data. The in our country can take any decision on production and observations have been supplemented by a case study 5996 Afr. J. Agric. Res. Facilitating Functions: * Physical Functions * Storage o Exchange Functions o Buying o Selling * Processing * Transportation Figure 1. The functional approach of agricultural marketing system (Kohls et al., 2002). from Chakaria, Cox’s bazar, Chittagong. selling functions have as their primary objective, which is the negotiation of favorable terms of exchange. The buying function involves the assembling the raw products THEORETICAL ISSUES AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE from the production areas as well as the assembling of CONCERNING AGRICULTURAL MARKETING finished products into the middlemen to meet the demands of the last consumers. The selling function There are several ways to approach the study of consists of various activities like display of good, agricultural marketing. Some are purely descriptive,where advertising and promotion to increase demands, proper others are more analytical. The major three approaches packaging, the best marketing channel etc. are given subsequently. The physical functions The commodity approach This involves the activities of storage, transportation and This approach is product-oriented rather than marketing processing that change the original form of the product function-oriented. This study consists of the properties of such as potato into potato chips, tomato into tomato the product, the market demand and supply position at sauces etc. both national and global levels, consumers’ behavior in that particular product and prices at the farm, wholesale and retail levels. It may be used use for further research Facilitating functions but not enough to judge why marketing costs vary. This help smooth out the exchange and physical functions. By the following ways it helps to go round the The institutional approach wheels of the marketing machine: This analysis is to study the characteristics of various (a) The standardization function that involves middlemen and related agencies of the marketing measurements of both quality and quantity facilitates devices. mass selling. (b) The financing function is the use of money to carry on the various aspects of marketing. Financing may be in The functional approach the form of credit or in the form of tying up the owner’s Under this approach, the marketing processes are broken capital resources. down into functions and the classification of functions is (c) Risk-bearing function can be classified into physical presented in Figure 1. risks (like destruction of the product through fire accident, cyclone, flood, cold, heat etc.) and market risks (the change in the value of a product, change of operation of Exchange functions rival firms). (d) Marketing information system (MIS ) is the job of This function involves activities of transferring the title of collecting, collating and disseminating the large variety of goods, where price is determined. Both the buying and data. All other activities viz storage programs, efficient Sultana 5997 transportation service depend considerably upon 28,670 million households, the number of agriculture farm accuracy, reliability and timely information. Three distinct households (who are cultivating 0.05 acres or more) is types of information are provided to the market decision 14,387 million, which is 51.33% of total households. makers. Barisal has recorded highest percentage (65.12%) of First, Recurrent information, provides information agriculture farm followed by Khulna Division (59.09%), periodically (such as weekly, monthly or annual basis). Rajshahi Division (55.83%), Sylhet Division (51.01%), Secondly, Monitoring information, which comes from Chittagong Division (50.11%) and Dhaka Division external sources like journals, articles, chamber’s (43.02%).About 38% of the landless households are very publication, and govt. reports etc. Thirdly, Requested poor who have inadequate income to feed themselves. information , provides information in response to specific The marginal people have little amount of land of their request by the marketing decision-makers. This type of own and are involved in share-cropping. These two information does not exist in the systems (Tull and groups constitute about 80% of the households of the Hawkins, 1999). surveyed villages. The rest 17% were self-sufficient and The functional approach is helpful in evaluating marketing only 3% of the households were rich (BBS, 2006). The costs. Usually retailing costs are much more than HYVs and Hybrids rice have introduced to overcome the wholesaling. Moreover it is useful for understanding the food deficit in the country. The chief varieties of rice in differences in marketing costs of various commodities, for Bangladesh are Aus, Aman, Boro and IRRI. Aus, Aman example, the cost of perishable product and less and Boro production and cultivation areas are shown perishable product. Sometimes this cost differs because from the year 1971-72 to 2005-06 in Figures 2 to 10. difficulty of transportation, storage and risk-bearing Figures 2 to 4 show the production of Aus, Aman and functions. Boro rice of local and HYV from the year 1971-72 to Although it is sometimes possible to eliminate the 2005-06, respectively. It is apparent that Aus rice of local middleman, it is not possible to eliminate marketing production is falling from the mid year of 1987-88 but functions. For example, farmers can take the storage, HYV production is approximately same (maximum 1000 selling and transportation functions, eliminating brokers metric tons) from